(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
The American Analog Set, hailing from the Dallas area, forged a minimalist songcraft that surpasses even the slo-core of Codeine and the litanies of Mazzy Star, while edging close to the ambient rock of Seefeel. Mark Smith plays drums, Lisa Roschmann handles keyboards, Andrew Kenny is on guitar (the three had long been active as Electric Company), and the newest member, Lee Gillespie, plays bass.
The sound of The Fun Of Watching Fireworks (Trance, 1996) emerges at the intersection of minimalism (hypnotic repetition of basic motifs) and lo-fi songwriting (spartan arrangements, understated execution). The distracted strumming of guitars, the hushed falsetto, and drowsy cadences all contribute to a sense of music with minimal energy, minimal excitement, and minimal emotion. The cartilage vibrates slowly, without force, without purpose. In the single Diana Slowburner, ambient drones ā la Seefeel merge with
Mazzy Star-esque
litanies. On The Run's Where I'm From blends sprightly country-rock pacing, a fatalistic
Nico
-esque organ, and trance-like mantras. A gypsy guitar motif, an Indian-inspired martial rhythm, and a hissing background figure on an acid organ shape Gone To Earth.
Everything recalls the 1960s, from the faintly psychedelic Caribbean shuffle of On My Way to the Farfisa melodic flourishes and ecstatic rosary ā la It's A Beautiful Day in Too Tired To Shine. The work closes with the anemic blues of It's Alright, a statement that could not embody a more blatant contradiction. Where Brian Eno and Galaxie 500 meet and coalesce into a singular idea of non-music, the AAS have begun digging a grave for rocknroll.
From Our Living Room To Yours (Emperor Jones, 1997), recorded, like its predecessor, in a single room, shifts the perspective by a millimeterbut enough to clarify the operation: the quiet, hypnotic jamming of these Texans, anchored to repeated bass and organ motifs, seems like an extension of the rock of Galaxie 500 and Luna.
Magnificent Seventies (a tender folk ballad as a single) ambles for eight minutes, brushing against the sly boogie of Lou Reed, the neurotic croon of Neil Young, country-rock, minimalism, and even baroque fugues. The serene solfčge of the lead vocals contrasts almost mathematically with the menacing organ swirls in the background. Their art arises from contrasts, muting conflicts that would otherwise be violent. White House also seeks a compromise with pop, while Don't Wake Me perhaps finds the right balance between melody and anemic restraint.
The dreamlike side then takes over, exemplified by Where Have All The Good Boys Gone, which seems poised to become a song but remains anchored to a dazed slow-motion, a pale skeleton of what the song could be. In the twilight, slow swing of Blue Chaise, the singers fleeting whisper creeps in. In Two Way Diamond, a grim foreboding of death emerges, reminiscent of Neil Young at his most pessimistic and the most anemic Portishead.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
The extended single with Late One Sunday
and The Following Morning (Darla, 1997) reveals an even more
adventurous band. Late One Sunday weaves together two
hypnotic patterns: a country guitar twang and a dub bass line. The
drumming is intense. Spoken samples flying around. The keyboards build
an eerie pressure in the background, reminiscent of John Cale's viola in
the Velvet Underground. The song clocks in at 13 minutes.
The Following Morning is an avantgarde piece which borrows
heavily from minimalism: the keyboards repeat eastern-tinged psalms
(reminiscent of Terry Riley) while studied percussive patterns
in the manner of Steve Reich provide a subtle kind of counterpoint.
The Golden Band (Emperor Jones, 1999) reflects an impasse, with the
band pulled in two directions: the slow-motion, graceful pop songs of the two
albums on one hand and the minimalist textures of Late One Sunday, which
many consider their masterpiece, on the other hand.
The resulting sound can be best described as "drifting", a tendency towards more
trance-oriented and spacey ambience. The trademark of pop songs such as
A Schoolboy's Charm and The Wait remains the subtlety, the
carefully crafted uselessness of potentially inviting riffs and melodies,
the quiet and intense phrasing.
Sabotaging their own melodies and riffs before they can acquire rock's
stereotypical excitement has always been the AAS' ultimate reason of being,
a sort of peaceful self-destruction that may be inspired by eastern
religions.
The style excels in the instrumental New Drifters 1(10 minutes), a piece
for piano, bass and drums which, consciously or not, mimicks the structure of
the classical sonata in four movements.
Vibes and electronics transform Golden Band is a small requiem and
It's All About Us summarizes their first two albums.
That the instrumental tracks rule attests that
Kenny's limited vocal skills are rapidly becoming the band's weakness.
The single The Only Living Boy Around (1999) is a simple folk-pop
tune worthy of
Belle And Sebastian.
Through The 90s (Emperor Jones, 2001) collects the three singles
and a few unreleased tracks.
Know By Heart (Tigerstyle, 2001) is surprisingly "normal". The group
seems to head for the country ballad via rhythmic experiments like
Million Young and
We're Computerizing and We Just Don't Need You Anymore, but ultimately
being interested in the
laid-back melodies of Punk as Fuck, Aaron & Maria and
Like Foxes Through Fences. Shorter, simpler, lighter music for the not
too neurotic.
On Promise Of Love (Tiger Style, 2003) the band builds oneiric atmospheres out of half-hearted attempts at playing sounds.
Continuous Hit Music, introduced by an hypnotizing organ drone,
Hard to Find (fractured beat, xylophone),
You Own Me (jazz doodling), The Hatist,
and the eight-minute concerto for cello and keyboards of Modern drummer
magnify their approach to songwriting and songdiluting.
Slo-core, dream-pop and droning music meet and generate dream-core.
Set Free (Morr, 2005) is even less focused in the way it creates
amoebic structures that are supposed to coalesce into songs, but it invests
more in dressing up those amoebas. The effect of
the puntillistic arrangements is to inject a ghostly life into
tone poems such as She's Half.
However, it is telling that the most intriguing piece is an instrumental,
Everything Ends, with its eerie use of the keyboards.
Andrew Kenny debuted his new project Wooden Birds on the album Magnolia (Barsuk, 2009), a collection of languid, unassuming ballads.
Two Matchsticks (2011) is way too uniform and ordinary, like
a rosary whispered at a sorrowful midtempo pace.
Baby Jeans is the only song that is likely to wake you up.
